Month: April 2018

Lisbon Area, Portugal

Lisbon Camping

Joel

Rainy Day in Beja, so we quickly pack up and try to venture into town for some breakfast. We found what we needed but got drenched in the process. Fortunately, we heard the weather was better at our destination in Lisbon.

We headed out of town and stopped for a pizza lunch along the way before arriving at our final campsite in the city of Lisbon. Oddly, this city campground turned out to be the nicest commercial campground we came across on our travels – but it was much more expensive than the others.

The campground was located in one of Lisbon’s largest city parks and there were hiking trails going from place to place. We explored a few loops before returning to the campground to freshen up for the evening. Some of us swam in the freezing pool before we headed back into downtown Lisbon for one last dinner together.

It was Saturday night and the streets were packed. Driving the big campervan through the busy streets and finding parking was very tricky. Eventually, we found a spot a good mile away from the restaurant, but some entrepreneurial scammers were charging for parking and pocketing the proceeds there. We just paid them anyway because we were out of options.

We took a hike back up to the Indian restaurant that didn’t actually sell Indian food and had our feast. The dinner was the best we had all week. I knew Portuguese food could be very good and tasty from my experiences with Portuguese restaurant in other parts of the world, and this place confirmed that. We were all very happy with our meals and stopped for ice cream down the street on our way back to the car.

Alentejo, Portugal

Beja

Joel

We arrived in Beja, Portugal in time to set up camp and explore the historic town. Beja was the biggest town of any we had visited since leaving Lisbon at the beginning of the week. It also had plenty of charming cobblestone streets and a castle.

We explored a bit and settled in for a dinner at a recommended restaurant. So far, all of our meals have cost less than ten euros. This restaurant looked extra fancy, but the price range turned out to be in line with all the other places we had been eating. Oddly, we were presented with big menus and plenty of options, but after attempting to order something, I was quickly corrected and told that only six items were actually available at that time.

The campsite was nothing but dirt next to busy roads and a football stadium, but I survived through the use of my earplugs. By morning it was pouring rain and we needed to get back to Lisbon so my fellow travellers could fly back to Canada the next morning.

Andalucía, Spain

Cumbres Mayoress to Cumbres de Enmedio Historical Trail

Joel

I was awoken early by very strong winds trying to blow over my tent. After attempting to weight it down with big rocks, I had to eventually bail and pack up before the tent got damaged. The winds reminded me of our easterly winds in Perth and whether there was a connection between them and these winds and the Santa Ana winds of southern California – all locations with Mediterranean climates.

The town of Cumbres Mayoress was very small and not so friendly. There were few places to eat, but we did manage to find a place open for coffee next to the square in the morning. We also found a supermarket to restock our supplies in.

Once we were stocked up and packed up, we parked our van on the outskirts of town, hiked up to the village castle, and embarked on what was supposed to be a ten kilometre hike to the neighboring town of Cumbres de Enmedio.

The hike was beautiful and a real interesting find. We could only conclude it was the original laneway connecting villages from back in Medieval times. It followed old rock walls on either side and passed scores of small farms along the way. The spring flowers were blooming everywhere and the rolling hills of the countryside were wonderful to look upon. The hike only managed to extend about 8kms in the end, but we all enjoyed ourselves very much. The village of Cumbres de Enmedio was very small, but a nice place to relax for a bit after the hike. From here we headed back into Portugal for the night.

Andalucía, Spain

Aracena

Joel

Woke up to a few friendly toots from local farmers passing by in cars, but the beautiful pastoral scenery of lush greenery and mist rising over the Rio Alcarrache surrounded us while we cooked up and ate a hot breakfast.

From here we headed into the small town of Aracena. It was nice and a bit more developed for tourism than most of the other towns we had visited, but our frustration grew adjusting to Spanish schedules. Many sites close early for siestas and evening dining is never available until after 9pm.

We hiked up to the Castillo de Aracena, only to find it locked up for the afternoon – so we attempted to hike to other locations around the town. Nothing really worked out and we found ourselves walking around in circles.

There was free camping in town in a vacant lot, which did not appeal to my fellow travellers, so we headed out of town to find another place to camp for the night. We were having trouble finding a suitable place, but finally found a farmer happy to have us camp on his property just outside the town of Cumbres Mayoress.

Castilla-La Mancha and Extremadura, Spain

Bullfighting and Fending off Bulls

Joel

We came to the very first town in Spain, called Villanueva del Fresno, and immediately discovered a recommended hiking trail just outside of town. It was twelve kilometres long but we found at the turnoff that there was really no safe place to park our campervan – so we drove and drove along a narrow beautiful laneway past many wildflowers and grazing livestock to find a place to ditch the van. Three kilometres later, we found a place to park next to a very old stone bridge across the Rio Alcarrache.

Well, that made our hike easier. Now down to a six-kilometre loop, we set off to hike along the river amongst grazing bulls and cows – which made a few of us a bit wary enough to opt for the other side of a barbed wire fence. Eventually, we found the trail cutting inland and worked our way back to the campervan. We decided this place was so nice it was going to be our campsite for the night!

Needing dinner and being high on castle exploration from earlier in the day, we decided to head back into Villanueva del Fresno for another snoop around narrow cobblestone laneways, central squares, and a castle. Like many of the villages we visited, the young children would all head to the village square to play after school.

We tanked up our water supplies again and headed for the village castle. This one was much more of a pile of rubble than the Castelo de Mourão, but it was situated with beautiful views of the surrounding countryside.

We discovered a local bullfighting ring in the village, so we decided to pop by and see if we could have a snoop. After a circumference of the structure and a few tries at the main door, and caretaker popped out and invited us all in for a free guided tour. It was only used a few times a month, but it was interesting to see the inside. Having seen a real bullfight in Mérida, Venezuela at the age of 8, I was not keen to see another.

After our bullfighting tour, we set off to try and find a place to eat dinner. There were a few recommendations in town, but neither opened until 9PM – as with most of Spain. To kill some time waiting, we found a pub open and drank ourselves some local beers. And what was on the big TVs in the pub? A live graphic broadcast of a bullfight going on in neighboring Seville. I chose not to watch, but many of my travelling companions could help but sneak a gory peek from time to time.

Finally, 9PM arrived and we heading down to the recommended restaurant. It turned out to be one of the best meals of our visit. They seem to be big on garlic around here, but that doesn’t bother me one bit.

Afterwards, we headed back to our planned camping spot late and I pitched my tent in the headlights of the van on the other side of a cattle fence, so I didn’t get visited in the night. A beautiful spot that turned out to be our favorite over the period of our travels, but I can’t say I slept great thinking about farm dogs visiting or whether a farmer might want us to move on.

Alentejo, Portugal

Medieval Castle Exploration

Joel

Woke up early with the intention of hitting the highway, but realizing we needed breakfast and groceries, we found ourselves making another visit back inside the walled city of Évora. This time we drove and parked just outside the gates.

All stocked up, we got out of town and headed for Spain – making a stop along the way in the tiny village of Vendinha. We picked up that almost every town has a central square with free-flowing drinking water, so we filled up our jugs for the next day’s supply. We also discovered wine is very cheap – and doesn’t seem to cause migraines, so we were making sure we always had a bottle for meals.

After more coffee stops along the way, we pulled into the small village of Mourão for a homemade lunch and a bit of a snoop. Another gorgeous little-cobblestoned town with a castle on a hill overlooking the area. It seems every town has a castle of varying upkeep dating back to medieval battles between Spain, Portugal, and Moroccans.

Not being sure on the cost of entry to the Castelo de Mourão, we decided to just sneak up and walk around the perimeter to see what it was like for free. When we got around to the front, we discovered it was wide open for anyone to explore with medieval spiral staircases that led us up to the tops of the towers and castle walls. It was full of grazing sheep and had the usual church inside – which was still being used by the community. It was a very cool and unexpected find.

After we satisfied ourselves with the town of Mourão, we crossed into Spain. Expecting to find some sort of passport control, we simply saw a sign marking the country boundary instead.

Alentejo, Portugal

Roman Ruins in Medieval Évora

Joel

After a quick and early breakfast, we left the chilly Atlantic coast and headed inland for the warmth of southern Spain. We found ourselves driving on many brand new and deserted multilane highways over long expensive bridges to get around to the east side of Lisbon. Eventually tired of the multilane highways, we decided to try out some back roads for the last third of our journey to see the real Portugal. We found many cork tree farms and eucalyptus plantations and explored a few. We also made the obligatory stops for Portugal espresso coffees and custard pastries a few times.

By midday, we arrived at our destination for the night. It was the beautiful town of Évora. Évora is another UNESCO World Heritage Site surrounded by medieval walls and containing many narrow cobblestone streets, cathedrals, and even Roman ruins. Not a place to even think about driving a campervan, we instead explored the tiny laneways for the for rest of day on foot. The Roman ruins were my first and were amazing to see and think about the builders thousands of years ago. We managed to get on top of the highest cathedral for a good look around the city and surrounding countryside. A very beautiful place.

Before heading back to our campsite, we had a crazy dinner with wacky waiters at a weird restaurant in the walled city. So far, I have not been too impressed with Portuguese cooking: Big on meat, not so big on vegetables. The meat always brought out very undercooked as well, seemingly being merely blanched before being served.

19,000 steps later, I was back in my tent at our campsite – which was a hike in itself outside of the walled city.

Lisbon Area, Portugal

Secret Stairwells

Joel

After a good night’s sleep with earplugs, I woke up early to get back up on the roof and get some pictures. A few of my travelling companions were also up, so we decided to sneak out early for a bit of a look around and to find some local coffee and pastries. There were numerous cafes within easy walking distance, so we dropped by a number of them for multiple coffees and more custard pastries. Fully awake, we headed back to our hostel for our included breakfast.

We packed up and drove into downtown Lisbon to check out a few sites for hitting the road for the rural life. A few recommendations were a ceramics shop that sold pottery by the pound and a castle overlooking the city. It quickly became apparent that driving a campervan would be a challenge in the tiny narrow streets of Lisbon, so we ditched the vehicle near the ceramics store and hoofed it down across the valley to get up to the Castelo de S. Jorge. A big climb and many steps later, we found it extremely popular with other tourists and with long lines that we decided weren’t worth waiting in, so we explored the tiny alleyways surrounding the area. There were lots of really cool tiny twisty roads to get around. After satisfying ourselves with a good introduction to Lisbon, we headed back down through the valley and back up to our car on the other side.

Our aim was to hit the highways and explore some old country towns, so we started out by heading towards the sea to a town called Sintra, which has the distinction for being a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its “Cultural Landscape”. The hilly countryside and small villages were beautiful and seemed stuck in time. We ended up visiting the tunnels and underground spiral staircases of Quinta da Regaleira. It was designed and built in the late 1800’s for a very wealthy coffee businessman and used for Tarot initiation rites, among other things. An amazing place.

Afterwards, we headed up the coast to find some camping along the beach at Erisceira and to see these huge surfing waves Portugal is famous for. We ended up at a bit of a dodgy and mostly vacant campground with no toilet seats or toilet paper. Even though we had been on our feet for most of the day, we hiked into town for dinner and found a beautiful historic town with more cobblestone streets and white painted dwellings. It had very cool old laneways and ocean views reminiscent of images of Greek coastal communities. Had another fish dinner on snapper while watching the sunset over the Atlantic Ocean.

27,000 steps later, I headed for my little tent. A walking record for me.

Lisbon Area, Portugal

Hello Lisbon

Joel

Arrive in Lisbon after flying 20 hours on an interesting flightpath that took us over parts of Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Cairo, Tunisia, the Mediterranean, and Spain. I meet up with my travelling companions at the airport exhausted, of course. We were to meet up with our campervan supplier at the airport, but there was confusion about where and when we were to meet. Eventually, they picked us up in a tiny car we couldn’t all fit it (some caught the subway). We drove about 1/2 hour south of Lisbon over a golden gate looking bridge and past a giant Jesus to a small country town for briefing and van pickup.

Headed into our Lisbon hostel on the outskirts of downtown. Found a great view of the town up on the roof. The six of us took over a dorm room and claimed bunks for the night.

After a bit of recuperation, we embarked on a hike down the beautiful leafy and cobblestones Avenue da Liverdade to explore the streets, admire the old architecture, and find some dinner. Along the way we snack on roasted chestnuts, got out shoes polished where applicable, and ate some custard pastry. We eventually found a fine fish restaurant on a steep side street and have nice codfish dinner.

About as much as I could handle on 48 hours without sleep, I separated from the group and headed back to the hostel to crash for the night.